Unusual Words

Being a writer, I like a wide variety of words, and over the years, I've amassed quite a few words that have some specific meanings that English doesn't have a word for. Some of these I've pulled from other languages, some were swiped from a couple of articles on Cracked.com about words, but I figured I'd share them all right here today.


grevaldor (noun) - (pronounced grev-ALL-door) a parent who has experienced the death of a child. A person who has lost a child. Based on the Old French grever which is the root word for grieve and Old English ealdor for parent.


prepone (verb) - to rescheduled something to occur prior to its previously scheduled time. The opposite of postpone.


stinn (noun) - a person who is standing in a stationary position blocking whatever it is you need to do for no discernable reason. This most often applies to two people talking in front of a sink or water cooler without actually using those items. Sentences: "I needed to refill my water, but I couldn't make the stinn move." "The stinns were blind to the world talking football in front of the restroom door, so I figured I'd just go upstairs."


prax (noun) - Anyone trying to sneak more than the posted maximum allowed items in an express lane at a grocery store. "It clearly says 10 items or less, and that prax has 15."
prax (verb) - the act of taking more than the posted maximum allowed item in an express lane at a grocery store. "You'll never be able to prax with that many items." Future sign at an express lane: "No Praxing"


drevend (noun) - an item you want to deal with or accomplish at some point, but probably never will. Usually part of a list of other, similar items. "He ranked reading the Bible with the other drevends in his life." "As they searched through his effects, one drevend after another revealed itself." "The 1001 movies you must watch before you die is more of a list of drevends than something anyone might actually do."


neech (noun) - An inevitable, obvious, and often childish, comeback or notion (that may or may not be clever) that someone (who clearly thinks they are clever) felt they had to say eventually about a subject. "I had to concede to the neech that yes, Queen of Hearts does sound like Queen of Farts." "Yes, I have heard the neech that the Retardis was the slower second version of the Tardis."


requiz (verb) - 1. to ask the same question over and over again. 2. to ask an incessant number of questions past the point of logical understanding of the subject. requizzer (noun) someone who requizzes. "The new person has requizzed me so many times, I'm not sure they'll understand." "How many times can we requiz this subject?" "I try to steer clear of requizzers. Too much time lost."


probochondriac (noun) - someone who has the same problem over and over again. "This probochondriac has managed to break their PC a dozen times this week."


Slacosphere (noun) -  1. a region consisting of a cluster of non-productive people, aka slackers. "Henderson works up on the 17th floor in the slacosphere with the rest of those boneheads." 2. a room designed for the sole purpose of avoiding productivity. "Have a seat on the comfy couch and check out my new 84" flatscreen, the centerpiece of my slacosphere."


rollaction (noun), rollact (verb) - the literal eye roll or reaction your wife gives when you do those weird little things she loves about you that she rolls her eyes at every time. "Tell that joke she's heard before? She rollacts as expected."




backashan - a beautiful girl, as long as she is viewed from behind. Similar to butterface, as in everything about her its hot but her face. Etymology: from Japanese Bakku-Shan

stairway comeback - when you think if the perfect verbal comeback...much too late - Etymology: Espirit d'escalier (French)

Lapinye - a look between two people that suggests a shared, unspoken desire - Etymology: Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan)

Backfang - a person with a face badly in need of a fist. As in smug or not knowing when not to say something stupid or embarrassing - Etymology: Backpfeifengesicht (German)

Nunchi - the art of not becoming a backfang (backpfeifengesicht). As in knowing when not to say something to get punched. - Etymology: Nunchi (Korean)

Shlematzle - someone who had nothing but bad luck - Etymology: Shlimazl (Yiddish)

Tatamay & honay (ta-ta-may & hoe-nay) - what you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively. - Etymology: Tatemae & honne (Japanese)

Malareach - when people interrupt you at meal time - Etymology: Sgiomlaireachd (Scottish gaelic)

Tingo - to borrow from a friend until he has nothing left - Etymology: Tingo (Pascuense)

macgyver - to pull a MacGyver. The art of slapping together a solution to a problem at the last minute with no advanced planning and no resources. - Etymology: Desenrascanco (Portuguese)

Shemojam - to eat past the point if being full just because the food tastes good. Lit. I accidentally ate the whole thing - Etymology: Shemomedjamo (Georgian)

sad-weight - excess weight gained from emotional overeating. - Etymology: Kummerspeck (German) Lit. Grief bacon

Kikamore - a teenager or 20 something who has withdrawn from society, often obsessed with TV and video games. - Etymology: Hikikomori (Japanese)

Nomborshule - an answer that is unrelated to the question. ex. to give a nomborshule. - Etymology: Gadrii nombor shulen jongu (Tibetan) Lit. Giving a green answer to a blue question

dorcheck - to go outside to check if an expected visitor has arrived, over and over again. - Etymology: Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

Kail - an ugly miserable woman who yells obscenities at her kids - Etymology: Kaelling (Danish)

snidebow - a building (often little our no value to the proprietor) constructed with the sole purpose of harassing or inconveniencing his neighbor in some way.  - Etymology: Neidbau (German) Lit. Envy building

grammar nazi - a person who believes it is their destiny to stamp out all spelling and punctuation mistakes at the cost of popularity, self-esteem, and mental well-being. Etymology: Pilkunnussija (Finnish) Lit. Comma Fuckers

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Butterface - A person, usually a girl, who is beautiful everywhere except in the face.

Lie-chiatrist - An unqualifie person who diagnoses themselves with a mental illness that they don't actually have, for the sole purpose of using it as an easy go-to excuse for their irresponsible behavior.

Gasterval - the period between when a relationship starts and when you first openly fart in front of your partner

Bleakfast - the first meal of the day, consisting of cold leftover from the night before

Intelliduh - stupid actions or words by an otherwise intelligent person

slocking - a popular online pastime best known for being cruise control for cool (having something to do with CAPS LOCK)

zeitgaffe - a cultural reference that is sufficiently inaccurate or outdated to demonstrate that the make of the reference is out of touch with, or separate from, the prevailing group

malamorous - Of a villain in a work, being appealing to fans despite being the antagonist of the work, often because of handsome appearance or justifiable motivation

Friendstipation - the inability to poop when somebody you know might hear

Necroliker - someone who likes a post on Facebook about the loss of a loved one.

Xacuate - The process of attempting to rapidly close a web page before it can be seen by someone else.

Gamacho - The undeserved sense of grandeur and arrogance an individual gets at winning a video game, often making the game miserable for other players.

Wikinius - a person who claims to be an expert in a cetain topic when it's clear they've only read the wikipedia entry on it.

Factoidiot (fack-TOID-ee-uht) - 1. a person who (often incorrectly) quotes a movie or TV show they've never seen. 2. A person who repeats a bit of trivia and knows nothing else about the subject.

yammertia - The resistance of a tiresome, one-sided conversation to any change in its state of motion

apostraphy - The phenomenon of losing supporters in an Internet argument due to the inability to express oneself in proper grammar, orthography, and punctuation.

obstacolleague - a co-worker whose inability to work well (or work at all) forces you to neglect your own duties - so you can fix their mess.

Meeternity - 1. An unproductive business meeting that feels as if it will never end. 2. A string of pointless meetings that last all day halting productivity.

Malaproboner - an inappropriate or inopportune erection of the penis

Consterpation - 1. a long, painful conversation in which every word in a struggle to get out. 2. an awkward dialogue characterized by long pauses and uncomfortable silences.

McRibocrite - a person who complains about how disgusting fast food is, but eats it anyway.

Camoufanning - turning on a bathroom fan to muffle pooping noises

Interawktion - a moment wherein you and a person you've just met share an uncomfortable silence because you've shared something overly weird and/or personal

Soapbombing - deliberately steering all conversations towards one particular issue about which you are very outspoken.

cinefalsity - the spontaneous act of lying to someone about seeing a movie or TV show when you know you haven't.

qui-goner - a character who you always knew was going to die, right from the first scene.

Eleventurer - a master of one-upmanship. the person given to articulating the details of his possessions and his accomplishments deemed to be superior to any you might mention: his higer horsepower, more megapixels, better concert seats, longer workout, etc.

Moistery - inexplicable dampness

keyjam - the dirt, grime, and gunk found in between the keys of a keyboard

lactease - to place any size container of milk back in a refrigerator with only a half fluid ounce remaining at the bottom.

viewgling - intentional search of the internet for plot points and spoilers of movies, so you never again have to hear people gasp when you tell them that you haven't seen Godfather II.

greatsgusting - you knew it was disgusting, but you ate it anyway. And it was delicious.

ninjestrians - people dressed in dark clothing walking along unlighted roads at night

sortamatopoeia - a word for something that doesn't make a sound, but if it did, would sound exactly like that word. ex. bling, slink, glisten

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"Farpotshket" (Yiddish) - Something that was a little bit broken ... until you tried to fix it. Now it's totally screwed.

"Yaourt" (French) - To sing along in nonsensical noises that vaguely resemble the lyrics of a song.

"Attaccabottoni" (Italian) - A person who corners you to tell you long, meaningless stories, usually about his oh-so-miserable life.

"Epibreren" (Dutch) - Pretending that you're doing something super important, while in reality you're being super lazy.

"Soare cu Dinti" (Romanian) - Weather that looks great until you actually step out in it. Specifically, a beautiful sunny but frigid day.

"Utepils" (Norwegian) - That first beer you drink outside when the weather finally turns warm.

"Drachenfutter" (German) - A gift a man gives to his wife to apologize when he's done something stupid (typically staying out way too late).

"Tartle" (Scots) - The momentary consternation you feel when you go to introduce someone and realize that you've forgotten his or her name. Can also function as a verb.

Forty

My birthday is on Friday, and I'm turning forty. Birthdays tend to be a time to reflect on a life and see where you stand after another year, but forty is a bigger milestone. It's basically a centerpoint since your average lifespan on this rock is around eighty years. Hence, I've been really thinking lately about what I wanted to do with my life and whether I've actually done that or not.

The biggest thing in my life has been my family, and to that end, I've been very successful. Been happily married for sixteen years, and my children are doing very well. I know what it takes to be married and how to stay that way. I know that it takes compromise and the desire to remain in a relationship in order to succeed, and I have been able to see where people have failed in that regard. I've always been a bit of a loner, but being in a solid relationship for what amounts to almost eighteen years (when you count the dating aspect of our relationship), I have a decent handle on what makes one work.

Moving past the relationship, however, I'm a failure. I have been in a job for the last eight years, and I've been successful in it because I'm exceptionally smart. That's about it. I probably the only one in my position without a college degree because I can just do what I need to, and I do it better than anyone else. Why don't I have a college degree? Because this isn't what I wanted to do, and it still isn't. I'm in the job I have to have in order to survive.

With everything else I do, when I run down the laundry list of what I've done, it sounds very impressive. I've written three full musicals and one was staged. I've had a play performed. I've published four books, and I've written dozens if not hundreds of songs. I can play lots of instruments, though my preference always falls to piano, and I can even play and sing at the same time. I've written a lot of screenplays, and I even produced and directed a couple of them. I've written the soundtracks for not only my movies, but also two others. I've recorded a ton of music which I arranged and performed. But none of that actually means anything since none of it is a living.

So I have written four books, and am wrapping up a fifth, which is the fourth in a series I'm writing. I've self-published all of them because no publisher is interested. People who have read them are enthusiastic, but they don't sell because it is not well known. This is what I want to do, and the world just doesn't want me to do it.

The musicals are all old, and I've never done anything further in that area because no one wants to hear any of it. They want stuff they know from people they've heard of. Unknowns get no attention.

Screenplays are fun, but again, unless you're established, no one cares.

I perform as a musician regularly in public at my church, and it's fun enough. Of course, that doesn't pay so there is no living there. Just to have some measure of success, I've written a lot of worship related songs, but my worship leader is not interested in them either. I can't even give away my work.

So I've a rousing success in the personal department. But I'm an absolute and unequivocal failure professionally. My epitaph will be "He never stopped trying." Trying is all I have though.

People pay attention to kids who appear to be very talented, and they believe that with so much talent, that kid will certainly do well. Well, here is a guy on the far side of that equation bursting at the seams with a ridiculous amount of talent, and you know what? No one cares. It doesn't matter one lick how much talent you have. I don't even have to give some random made-up example about someone with a lot of talent failing because I am that person. Everyone I meet remarks how talented I am, but it doesn't mean anything. If anything, being that talented alienates me from everyone else because no one has any idea how to relate to me. Being that talented has hurt me more than it has helped because there are very few people out there like me. When one has no experience with someone who has such an overarching talent range, they treat you just like everyone else.

You know what? I'm not everyone else. I never have been. It sounds stupid to say I'm special, but that's what it boils down to. Everyone has their specialties, and some people actually get to use them. I get to use what those in charge designate as useful and they waste the rest.

I want to be done, but that would be succumbing to failure. I don't want to be a failure. I don't.

But I am.

Levels of Friendship

So I was talking to Rock Girl the other day about what I see as friendship, and I hit upon an explanation that perfectly explains what this friend phenomenon means to me and why I see it the way I do. I figured this would be worth sharing so I'd remember it, and so maybe someone out there might find this insightful. I've done no real research here. I'm just typing.

First, it is important to understand what I would call "life segmentation." Our lives are split into different, very distinct facets where we have to know or do certain specific actions in order to maintain a level of peace within that segment. The most common segments in one's life include home, work, school, church, hobby, and family. The difference between home and family involves the difference between immediate and extended family and the social aspects of the latter. In each of these parts, we know people, and I'm sure you'll notice in thinking of your own life that people in these individual segments don't often cross. This is an important aspect of my view on friendship.

Now, my list of levels

1. Someone you know - Whether we know it or not, we know a lot of people. If this were written in Spanish, I would have used two different words for "know" because the first involves knowledge while the second involves personal information. Thing is, we can all probably think of a long list of names of people we know who inhabit our various segments. I can name people in a variety of professional capacities in my office, I know lots of people's names at church, and I can list random people who I know by name and function who fit into various parts of my life, but I know little more about them beyond their name and function. Those people are not friends or acquaintances. They are just people who exist that you know who rank only slightly above the unknown because at some point you learned their name. This is not a diss to any of them, mind you. I just can't tell you that the guy who works in the mail room (whose name I do know) is a friend of mine on any level any more than the various spouses of the people on the worship team. They are just people I can identify by name.

2. Professional Acquaintance - This is a person who occupies a single segment of your life that you speak to on a regular basis, but rarely, if ever, about anything other than topics that fit within the boundaries of that segment. If they're at work, the conversation is always about work stuff. If they're at church, the conversation revolves around church stuff. These are people about whom you might know a little more such as spouse or children, but you never sit down for a discussion on a personal level. You know what their function is within your segment, and you generally stick to that. When referred to at all, these people often are described as their function above all else.Your boss (or the person in charge of your segments) is the most common person in this category.

3. Acquaintance - This is a person who occupies a single segment of your life that you can speak to about something involving other segments. These people are generally referred to as friends, but when you talk about them to people in other segments, they are almost referred to as "the friend at work" or "someone from whatever." Their friendship is grounded within that segment, and while it might survive outside of that segment, that step has not been taken. If you pay close attention to how this list runs, you might even catch that it sounds like the steps of a relationship. That's because before you can (should) get romantically involved with someone, they have to become a friend first. The "friend zone" is dreaded among the dating, but the fact is that people who are looking for a long term relationship will pass through these steps, sometimes quickly. However, when dealing with people who are friends, the vast majority of friendships that are referred to as friendships live right here.

4. Friend - A friend is a person who comfortably occupies more than one segment of your life. At some point, after knowing of this person, then learning what they do, and then getting to know them on a personal level, the segment wall was broken and they crossed over into a different segment. Where this occurs is tricky because the person has to fit within more than one segment on a regular and easy basis. My most recent attempts to cross people over from acquaintance to friend have failed because they never hit any kind of regular or comfortable basis. These are going to be people on whom you can call when you need someone, and they're generally going to get to know people who are within the other segments of your life because they can fit by your side regardless of which segment you happen to be in at the time. Getting an acquaintance to become a friend requires effort on the part of both sides, and while basic friends tend to travel along this path in a very leisurely manner, dating tries to cram all of these steps together and rush them as quickly as possible, which is why dating seems so difficult to some. The people in this area are very special because you won't have very many of them, and as such, people will sometimes refer to them as "best friends," but to me, that term is reserved for one more level. The major difference between this level and the next is that this bond is still breakable. Someone here can be pulled in other directions, whether by personal interest, another person, or life itself, and end up leaving the friendship, albeit with some difficulty sometimes.

5. Best Friend - The rarest of them all. Sometimes, this person is actually a family member, but if they are not biologically related, they might as well be family. This is a person you would trust with your life because you know they trust you with theirs. You unconditionally love this person. Unconditional love is not the romantic kind of love, though you should definitely be at the best friend level with someone before you marry them. Unconditional love means that no matter what happens, good or bad, the relationship you have with this person cannot be broken except through something very, very significant or traumatic. Building someone from level 1 to here takes significant time and effort, and so very few friendships ever reach this level. When they do, though, it is something special.

0. Family - I have to place family members off to the side because family is usually forever whether anyone likes it or not. The bond we share with the ones to whom we're related is different from the levels of friendship though they can occupy places in those levels. Our family relationships can sometimes be firmly placed in certain levels of my list, but more often than not, they circumvent the level convention because we usually have very little choice as to their presence. Hence, you have that unconditional love element often running through the family even though they might only feel like a professional acquaintance. Weird thing, relationships.

Ok, so that being said, I found that upon examining my life, I have no friends. I have quite a few acquaintances, but they all live firmly within their boundaries. Facebook doesn't count as breaking the segments. I have people at work, and they stay there. I know the worship team, and they stay there. I know other people at church, and they stay there.

There is exactly one person who lives on the border of acquaintance and friend in my life, but attempts to cross that line have failed. He invited me into his hobby segment, and while I enjoyed it, I never belonged there, so the comfort bit failed. I have him as an xbox friend, but we've only ever played one game together. I have borrowed games on occasion, but that doesn't really count as crossing the lines. He did buy my books, and I have him in some level of confidence on their future, but all those conversations took place within the office. It is within that segment that the relationship with him lives, so he remains merely an acquaintance.

If you disagree with my list, I don't care. This is how I see the world. It works for me. Someone might try to reclassify everything to show that maybe I do have friends, but reclassification is an exercise in futility. It won't change reality. I live in the real world. This list is simply a way of organizing it.